And what type is that, an inner voice taunted. She would not even answer that.
What she was feeling for Amari all of a sudden was new and frightening. She was desperately trying to come up with a plan to kill the emotions for good.
“Let’s go get them,” Amari said, and Raven couldn’t think of any excuse not to leave with him for just a few minutes. She picked up her cap and he held the door for her. She held her breath as she walked past him.
Outside, the June sun was out in full force and a touch of humidity was in the air. Amari led the way silently to his car and opened the door for her. Raven sat in the car and was amazed at how clean it was. It looked brand new. She sat back and pulled the seat-belt and the moment he sat on the driver’s seat she cursed herself for agreeing to go anywhere with him. She should’ve sent Kendra.
“Which way?”
“Turn left and then drive across two lights, I think,” Raven said, glancing out the window. The music started, and Raven was surprised to hear old-school R&B. She was sure he was going to have the latest woman-hating CD calling all women whores and gold diggers. The music made her relax a little.
“Is the air a’right?” he asked.
“It’s fine.” Though the air-conditioning was full blast, she felt hot. She couldn’t look at him.
“So when did you start working for the center?” he asked.
“A year ago. It’s quite new.”
“What’s your other job?”
“Social work.” Amari laughed and Raven looked at him, surprised.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are.”
“I haven’t said anything funny,” Raven said, looking at him and realizing his profile was just as good.
“No. For a moment there I thought I was conducting an interview.” Amari glanced at her. Raven frowned.
“What?”
“Thing is, I kept asking you questions and you gave me one-word answers. That’s an interview of some sort isn’t it?”
Raven didn’t know what to say to him. Instead she looked at the road and realized that they had passed the turn.
“Stop. I mean go back. I’m sorry. We missed the road,” she apologized, craning her neck to read the street signs.
“That’s okay. I’ll turn right at the next street and make a U-turn.”
When he was driving back she decided to ask him a question, too. Many questions came to her head but she tossed them all aside; “How long have you played basketball?” sounded too stupid. “Where is your family?” was even worse. “Do you go to church?” sounded ridiculous. “Are you married?” was laughable.
“You like old-school music?” Raven asked and wished she could hide under the seat. What a silly question. Of course he likes it, fool, that’s why he’s listening to it.
“Yeah, and you?”
“That and classical,” she said.
“Really?”
“Well I was reading this book about health and stress that said some classical music relieves stress,” Raven said.
“You stressed?”
“Turn here,” Raven said quickly, then added, “Yeah, I get stressed. Maybe not as stressed as you get when you are about to shoot the winning three-pointer.”
“You watch basketball?”
Raven shook her head. “No, sorry. I only catch glimpses when I visit my family. I may have seen you play, but I’m not sure.”
Amari laughed. “I don’t know how to feel about that. I think you are the first person I’ve met who hasn’t seen me play. I’m hurt.” Raven shrugged when she saw he was joking. He didn’t care whether she saw him play or not.
“I’ll definitely watch the next game you play just to see if you are as good as you say.”
“I haven’t said I’m good,” Amari protested.
“No. If you say I’m the only person who hasn’t seen you play then I’m sure you think you are that good.”
“Does runner-up MVP count?”
“What?”
“I guess you didn’t know that, either.”
“One thing I know for sure, you are not shy about tooting your own horn.”
“I’m just hurt that I had the biggest year of my entire life and you missed it.”
“It can’t matter that much.” Raven had relaxed as they drove and didn’t pay attention to where they were going. “Oh, you missed the turn again!”
“You are the worst navigator I’ve ever seen. I might as well have come by myself or asked a blind person to show me where to go.” Amari laughed, making another U-turn. Raven laughed nervously. She looked at him and for the first time since she sat in his car their eyes met. Her heart began to hammer.
Chapter 4
Amari was an incredible man. He was respectful and generous. What confused her was that, even though he was all these things, she still felt nervous and sparkly around him. She was angry with herself for being attracted to a man that gorgeous and that desirable. There was no chance he would ever be interested in her or even find her attractive. But she remembered their last conversation, after the basketball game. She played that over and over again in her head.
“Hi,” Amari had called and she looked up from her computer, his eyes causing little tremors to run up and down her spine.
“Hi. Game over already?” she asked, a little breathlessly. She bit her mouth to keep herself from blubbering like a fool.
“Yep. Great workout. You work too hard. You must come to a party on the eighteenth. It’s at a buddy of mine’s place.”
She was surprised and didn’t answer immediately so Amari added, “They are cool people.”
Was he asking her out? Was he really? Her hopes were dashed when he said, “Kendra said she knows how to get there. You can come together.”
Kendra. Of course. He was interested in Kendra. Who wouldn’t be?
“I’ll see if I can make it,” she said, and he walked over and shook her hand.
“It’s great working with you, Raven. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”
With those words he had left. Hours later at home, Raven sighed. She looked out her window, hoping the beautiful view would take her mind off of Amari.
She had bought the apartment when the owners of the building decided to turn the building into a condominium association. Raven had jumped at the chance. Even though buying a home had been the last thing on her mind, she didn’t regret it. Her home was a cocoon from the world she worked in that revealed the dark side of human beings she couldn’t believe existed.
Being a social worker had shown her how evil men and women could be to their children and, as much as it depressed her, she wanted to keep at it. To save one more child from abuse. To help women get out of domestic violence. To have a chance to tell a young girl that she was loved. That God loved her even though everybody else neglected her.
Raven picked up her cellphone and dialed her friend’s number. She needed to talk to somebody about her crazy day. Candice was just the person.
“Hey!” Candice answered on the first ring. “Just hold on. This baby is gonna kill me. He’s getting heavy.”
Raven smiled, happy to speak to her friend of over twenty years. Candice was not just a beautiful person physically but she was crazy, fun and very caring. She’d always been kind to Raven. When they were young Candice had always stood up for her when people made fun of her.
While she held the phone, Raven sat back and looked at her surroundings, wondering what Amari would think of her rather sparse decorations and scolding herself for being an idiot and a fool all in the same breath.
The spacious room was decorated in the earth tones she liked. Her beige loveseat complemented the hand-painted wooden vases from a traveling market. She didn’t have art pieces on the walls, but instead had designed dried sticks and placed them against the white paint in an artistic way. She had seen the idea in a home decorating magazine and tried it. The results were stark and interesting.
“I’m back, girl. How are you doing?�
� Candice came back on the phone.
“I’m fine, girl. How’s the family?” Raven asked, lying on the couch with her feet on the table. They would be talking for a very long time.
“Charles Junior is doing fine. I swear he said ‘mama’ today.”
“You are just imagining things. He’s only eight months.” Raven laughed. “He will say Aunty Raven first.”
“I bet he would, with the way he smiles every time he sees you,” Candice said.
“And Charles Senior?”
“Great. Final year of residency, thank God! Soon all the money should start rolling in. I really thought marrying a doctor would mean I wouldn’t have to worry, but it takes so long to see the fruits of your labor.”
“You mean his labor?”
“Girl, his, mine, where’s the fruit? I want my fruit.” Raven could imagine Candice throwing her arms up.
“Time has flown. So where’s he planning to practice?”
“We chose Beaumont Hospital. He was also looking into Henry Ford, and another offer came from Atlanta, but I want to stay close to my family. With Charles so busy my mother is the only one who helps me with the baby.”
Raven listened as Candice talked. It was hard not to feel a bit envious. Candice grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her father owned several fast food restaurants while her mother ran a chain of hair salons. Their parents brought them together, actually. Back in the day when Philip began his church, Candice’s parents, Ernest and Ruby Tramaine, had decided to join the church in its early stages. Candice’s parents contributed a lot to the growth of Calvary Worship.
Raven liked Candice from the first time they met, and as they grew up all the great things seemed to happen to Candice. She met a wonderful man who loved her and married him soon after graduating from college with a theatrical degree. Their wedding was the most talked-about event of the year, and now she had a beautiful baby boy who was so adorable he should be on Sean John’s modeling catalogue.
“You should let the girls go to school together,” Candice’s father had suggested. “I know a great school that used to be private but is now a charter school. It is run by one of the most incredible educators I’ve ever met. I can speak to the principal.”
And so in third grade Raven was enrolled at the Achievement Academy. Their friendship grew even though the two girls were as different as night and day. Candice was tall and thin with long black hair always done in two pony tails and a curly fringe. She became very popular in fourth grade and Raven basked in her sunshine. She was still a great person, which is what amazed Raven and still amazed her to this day. Once in a while she could act like a spoilt child, but Raven knew Candice had a good heart.
“So what’s been going on with you?” Candice asked.
“Do you watch basketball?”
“Of course. That’s all Charles and I get to do together, especially with the Pistons doing so well. Why?”
“I met one of the players.”
“Which one?”
“Amari.”
“Amari Thomas? Are you serious? He’s not only the most incredible player, he’s so fiiiine. I don’t know which is giving him more fame, his looks or his game. He just came from nowhere…”
“Okay, so you do know him.”
“Of course. Where on earth did you meet him? Don’t tell me he was one of your social work cases. That would be interesting.”
“No. No. He came to the center to help with the academic program.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Raven moved the phone away to keep from ruining her eardrum from Candice’s scream.
“No. I’m not sure what to do. He invited us to a get together with some of the team people, I think.”
“What!” This time Raven jumped up and rubbed her ear.
“Girl, you’re going to bust my eardrums. I think you already did.” Raven laughed and then lay on her couch.
“What do you mean, you don’t know what to do?”
“Should I go?”
“Of course, silly! We should decide what to wear. You need some new little hot dress. No, maybe some flirty pants and…oh, I know we need to go shopping. I know just the place at Somerset.”
Raven listened while Candice worked herself into a frenzy.
“Hey,” she finally cut in, “this is not a date or anything like that. He invited both me and Kendra.”
“Kendra? What? Lose Kendra!”
“I can’t ‘lose’ Kendra. She was invited, too, so before you start planning my outfits just know that I might not go and it’s not a date.”
“Why not? You had the chance to hang with Amari Thomas and you haven’t got a date out of him?” Candice sighed heavily. “Oh, I wish I was single again.”
“Listen, Candice. I doubt he’s interested in me that way. I’m certainly not his type.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I just know the women these ball players hang with. They marry models and they sleep with many other gorgeous girls who are just waiting to take off their clothes.”
“Does Amari strike you as that shallow? Like a cliché of a black man?”
“It’s not about being shallow, but just most guys in general. Guys want something to make their friends envious.”
“You are lovely, Raven,” Candice said off handedly. “Just because you are dark, you write yourself off.”
“Thanks, Candice, but you are the only one who thinks so,” Raven said without any bitterness. She had accepted that she would never turn heads the way women like Candice and Kendra and even her sister Tahlia do.
“I just think you don’t try. Don’t get mad, but I would like to do a makeover on you one of these days.”
“I don’t have time for that, Candice. No matter what I do I’ll never look like my mother or you. Sometimes when I talk to God I want to ask why women have to be judged so much by how we look. But it’s not His fault.”
“You talk to God? How?”
“Just speak like I’m talking to you. He’s my friend. You know what I mean.”
“I do know that God doesn’t help those who don’t help themselves. So you need to accentuate your God-given talents. You have that hot body, no fat…”
“Thanks, Candice. You only put on weight when you had the baby.”
“And still trying to lose it. I love my son, but I’m ready to go under the knife!”
“Don’t talk crazy. I better get going, Candy.”
“All right, but we go shopping tomorrow. Okay?”
“Fine. Fine, but don’t get too excited. I’m not spending money on clothes I might not even wear.”
After she hung up Raven powered up her computer and, feeling guilty, connected to the internet and looked up Amari Thomas’s website. After a few clicks his picture came on looking right at her. Her heart skipped a beat like he was right there in the room watching her. Without reading any more she shut down her web browser. She felt like a trespasser, looking up his life like a schoolgirl with a crush. That was stupid. She hated that she was becoming exactly like the girls in high school who kept posters of boy bands and movie stars as if they were angels or something. She would not read up his profile. At least not that night.
Chapter 5
“Why don’t you come over to my place? Then we can both drive over to Owen’s house,” Kendra suggested over the phone.
“All right. I’ll be there in a few,” Raven said nervously. She looked in the mirror and wished she could stay home and read. The pants she wore skimmed over her slim body and the loose-fitting peasant top covered up her breasts. She didn’t want to hope. She trusted God to send her the right man and doubted Amari was the one. He was just too good and hoping for anything at all with him was just a set-up for great disappointment.
She drove towards Kendra’s house, getting more and more anxious by the minute. Amari had been away for two weeks instead of one week like he had told her so she hadn’t seen him at all since the first day he came to the center. She was sure
he wouldn’t even remember her.
Raven arrived at Kendra’s house, where she lived with her mother, two younger brothers and stepdad. The house was on a quiet, tree-lined street off Grand River. Raven parked in front of the Kendra’s yellow Dodge Neon and got out of her Mini Cooper. Kendra walked out looking so lovely Raven felt dowdy and dull in comparison. Her stylish white capris hugged her body and the gold top complemented her gorgeous, flawless caramel skin. The skimpy gold stilettos added to her height and sophistication.
“Hey, Rave. Let’s get out of here. I’m so glad to be leaving the house. Dumb and Dumber in there are driving me crazy.” She gestured towards the house referring to her brothers, Terence and Trey.
“You look great,” Raven said.
“Thanks. So do you,” Kendra said off-handedly and pressed the button to open her car door.
“So follow me. I know where we’re going.”
“Fine,” Raven assented. She had agreed to drive her own car in case she wanted to leave early. Who knew, she might feel so uncomfortable that she didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of a party with no means to get home.
Though Raven drove fast it was hard to keep up with Kendra’s reckless driving and dangerous maneuvers on Highway 696. She was surprised Kendra hadn’t had an accident yet. After a few turns and twists, they arrived at the house. Kendra drove in and parked behind a huge Dodge Ram. Raven tried to squeeze behind her. When she got out she spotted Amari’s car. She recognized his plates. Her heart started beating and she wondered how she would feel when she saw him if the sight of his car made her feel so unsettled.
Show Me the Sun Page 3